Kids Can Tell When You’re Not Telling the Whole Truth

Kids Can Tell When You’re Not Telling the Whole Truth

Parents tell a million little white lies a day: “If you keep making that face, it’ll freeze that way,” “We’re almost there!” Studies have confirmed that children can often tell when adults are lying to them. In a new study, researchers from MIT set out to understand a subtler distinction: Can children recognize when adults are telling the truth, but not the whole truth?

Laura Schulz, associate professor of cognitive science, and Hyowon Gweon, an MIT postdoc, explain that learning how to perceive “sins of omission” is an important skill for children to develop—part of figuring out whom they can trust and whom they need to avoid. They determined that children can distinguish between incomplete and complete truth, and that they also compensate for incomplete information by trying to figure things out on their own.